FINALLY got my laptop back! Need some IMPORTANT answers

Finally got my 5920G laptop back from BestBuy's Geeksquad, and I have some questions. I believe that they used a Recovery Disc on mine.

1. My 8600M GT driver software is 7.15.11.5845. Is this Acer's driver? I don't want to ever download another driver that isn't from Acer; for one, they don't work with my HD-DVD drive. I want to go to the newest driver from Acer, so which one is that?

2. Is it true that there is a new Realtek audio driver that allows the laptop to output HDMI audio? My Realtek driver is 6.0.1.5400. Is this the newest one, and if not, is there one with HDMI audio, and if it doesn't have HDMI audio, how much better is it?

3. Well a whole list of problems caused my laptop to break. Things like not being able to turn on Firefox within the first minute of start up because the computer was still booting up(and if Firefox didn't start up, then windows didn't shut down if I pressed the button), and then I had to hold the power button to shut it off, and I think that this caused my problems. The Geeksquad guy told me that it was a problem with the Acer Bios Vista system or something. I don't know exactly what BIOS is, but I've read about it here, something very complicated that runs your computer, and if you want to fix it, you want to give it to someone who knows what they're doing.

But yeah, in general, any good drivers that I should upgrade? I only want drivers from Acer since I had a bad experience trying to change a driver before, and it wouldn't let me change it for an hour(I thought I would be stuck without a driver forever).

 

the only driver that is Acer specific will be the graphics driver, which will be the one you would have gotten with the recovery disc, being that's just how old the driver is...OLD!

the rest of the equipment can be upgraded via the manufacturers driver...ie, the Intel 4965AGN, go to intel.com and get the 4965AGN driver. same story with the Realtek audio stuff...go to the Realtek site and download that driver.

you suspect the modified driver messed your system up...if that's so, it's because it was modified and you probably didn't install it properly. if you game, you will have to get the up to date drivers, otherwise the newer games won't work for you.

nVidia doesn't support mobile graphics, hence why you needed to install a modified driver to get better performance. note that it is modified, which may be where the problems came from. the rest of the drivers I've directed you to download are fine from the other sites, because there's nothing mobile about them...they're all supported because laptop or desktop, it's the same chipset.

 

Can you tell me which drivers you have? Should I upgrade every single driver now(don't know if the recovery disc made all of my drivers old and bad)? Also, does your Realtek driver allow for HDMI output with audio?

 

hey Seph, I don't know if the audio streams via my HDMI, as I have nothing to test my HDMI on. I haven't had a TV for over 7 years.

a good general rule of thumb is not to upgrade your drivers unless they need to be. in the case of graphics, usually you need to and should so you can keep the performance of your GPU to play games. you can't do that because the last graphics driver Acer released was back in June, so it is FAR from up-to-date meaning you are not optimized to play current games.

if you have your restore discs/partition back, you may want to think about trying the graphics driver upgrade again as it would be a lot easier for you to fix the problem with a new installation. or, and this is what I'd recommend, go get yourself a copy of Acronis True Image 10 or 11 and create a backup of your OS installation once you have everything tweaked and adjusted to your tastes so if anything goes wrong, it's easy to fix your OS back to the way you want it. just remember to do incremental updates time to time afterwards.

in the case of your audio, you may want to update it...but, my understanding is all you have to do is change a setting in the audio panel to have the audio stream via the HDMI. you may wish to check the 5920G's manual for more information concerning that.

really, you should go and take a look to see what bugs and fixes or enhancements the new drivers provide. there's usually a write up about it on the download site.

 

Do you have the Realtek driver R1.84? I agree with what you said about not upgrading unless you had to. I wasn't planning on gaming a ton, but someone told me that it made the system work better, so I decided to try it. I'm not saying that it was bad, but I didn't need to.I just want to be able to play my HD-DVDs just fine. I don't want to use forceware, just the most recent Acer driver. Is 7.15.11.119 the most recent? I have 5845, so I'll be switching soon. As for Intel, you said in your first post that right now I have a certain driver, and that I should download the same driver again. What is the new driver you're talking about, and does it really increase performance? And like you said, do I really need to upgrade to intel's new driver(what's the name of it again).

Well I checked Intel's site, and there are different ones for Windows Home Premium 32bit OS and then there is one for Core 2 Duo mobile processor. So you're saying that it would even be fine for me to download the desktop driver? I might just stay with mine for now, but one thing that I do need to change is my BIOS, which is a lot harder.

 

well, I checked the Device Manager and it says I'm running some driver called 6.0.6000.16386...so obviously the numerical scheme is different then Realtek, which hints that perhaps it is a proprietary driver also.

someone linked to some drivers from the EU site, take a look in them and consider downloading and installing them. interestingly, they have a driver update for the VGA from January 2008, which is a heck of a lot newer then the one from June 2007 on the North American site.

ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/notebook/aspire_5920/vista/Drivers/

 

Are all the drivers on that list new(as in January 2008)? I'll call Acer tomorrow and ask them about all of this, though I won't tell them that I installed a modded forceware(158.45), but maybe that BestBuy did it or something. I'll just call them and ask them if the ones that you gave me are okay, and if downloading drivers from sites like intel and realtek is fine.

 

do call Acer and find out if it's okay to download any of the updated drivers from the manufacturer websites and then report back here with that.

as for the when those drivers were last updated, take a look at the release date printed along side them...that will tell you.

you shouldn't have to tell them that you ever installed a modded driver from before. :laugh:

 

Well they might ask which driver I have right now, so I'll just have to not talk about that. But can you tell me more about the Intel driver? I want to know if it's worth it or not.

 

I can't find Acer's phone # for some reason! They're trying to hide it or something; can someone give me their customer support #(or technical support).

 

Seph, open your eyes a bit. there's a sticky at the top of the forum with all the contact information. North America support is available at 800 816 2237.

btw, what driver are you running? I thought you said you weren't going to run a modded video driver ever again? as for the Intel driver, I would think that it would only get better in the N spec, being it's still draft and G is very mature. could be there is no new driver for it. I had only used it as an example...may have been a bad example.

 

Right now I have 158.45, which is modded. I want to change, but I had a very scary experience when I had to switch the driver. I uninstalled the acer one, but when I tried to install the new one, it said that it couldn't install it because some other installations were already taking place. I got scared that I would never be able to install a new graphics driver again(the screen was basically like 800 x 600 pixels where everything is big). But then the way I found out was to first uninstall your current driver, INSTALL A STANDARD VGA DRIVER, and then install your desired driver over the VGA driver. I don't want to install the new one just yet because one it's risky, and two I might want to download the one that you recommended.

As for Intel driver, N, draft, and G sound like terms I would use with wireless networks. I'll ask Acer anyways, and I also have to change my BIOS as I'm still having problems shutting down and restarting my computer.

 

just as an idea...try disabling your webcam, uninstall it's software and see what happens.